I am the founder of agency search consulting firm, AVIDAN STRATEGIES. I have more than 30 years of leadership experience with top global Madison Avenue agencies, managing iconic brands for companies like Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Bristol-Myers, General Motors, Pfizer, Mars, The Wall Street Journal,Sprint and Coca-Cola. During the course of my career I advanced to become a Managing Partner of WPP's Berlin Cameron/Red Cell, EVP and head of business development for Saatchi & Saatchi, the first Global Executive Director Havas advertising, and EVP account management at Y&R. I served on the global board of directors of Havas advertising and the North America Executive Committee of Saatchi & Saatchi. During my leadership tenure both Berlin Cameron and Havas, respectively, were named "Agency of the Year" multiple times. I am a native of Israel, a former army officer, and a Columbia MBA. You can reach me at avi@avidanstrategies.com

6 Practical Ways To Build A More Creative Marketing Team

Let’s face it, it’s always less risky to copy the leader than to come up with something original. The great legacy of innovators like Jobs or Branson is teaching us the power of creative thinking, and what having a vision and willingness to take risks can do for brands.

Steve Jobs believed that creativity is brought about by diverse experiences. People without it don’t have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. People that are inherently curious tend to experience things in life much differently, and much more often, than people who tend to be overly conservative. They tend to learn in ways that people who aren’t curious can’t.

The challenge lies in figuring out how to inspire your team to think imaginatively and unorthodoxly. Here are some tips on how do go about it:

1. Look outside your industry. I love the story that Jim Farley, the CMO of Ford Motors told at the recent ANA Masters of Marketing conference about how he rethought Ford’s marketing after studying the gaming industry’s approach to launching and publicity. Those companies don’t just launch video games – they go through elaborate pre-launch and post-launch phases to create buzz and maintain the excitement to maximize sales results.

2. Look at the definition of your business. Are you limiting the appeal of your product or service? Starbucks redefined the coffee drinking experience by making it “the third place”, after home and work. Starbucks isn’t just selling coffee, it’s selling an experience. Not being beholden to a conventional definition of a business is another way to tap creativity.

3. Have a disciplined process. Some people believe that creativity is a spark. In truth, creativity is a process, a discipline. It’s often a matter of methodically absorbing experiences, synthesizing them and applying one’s intuition to it. Stephen King writes 2,000 words a day, “and only under dire circumstances do I allow myself to shut down before I get my 2,000 words” he says.

4. Get naïve feedback. “Beginner’s luck” can facilitate creativity – with a twist. A lot of brilliant ideas don’t start this way, but become so when remarked on by a novice or an outsider. Experts sometimes tend to think in lockstep, and denigrate ideas not their own. Reach out for naïve advice beyond the usual suspects and liberate your creativity.

5. Fail quickly, cheap – and often. Creative organizations understand that success and failure go hand in hand, and therefore they are not intimidated by the prospect of failing. The willingness to absorb failure is liberating and encourages creativity. Simply manage the economics of failure to make it acceptable.

6. Create tension. F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked that “An artist is someone who can hold two opposing viewpoints and still remain fully functional.” Creativity is often sparked by the tension of clashing opposites, by contradictions. General Electric often pairs engineers and marketing people in its innovation teams, trying to break down groupthink and avoid tunnel vision.

Creativity is essential to growing the enterprise’s value. Too many companies today manage for EPS, or Ebitda. It’s easy to get seduced by value creation and treat the two most creative parts of any company, R&D and marketing, as expenses and therefore easy to cut. But by cutting them to help profitability, and curtailing creativity, companies also destroy value.

Avi Dan is the founder of Avidan Strategies, a marketing consulting firm that specializes in business and marketing advice, agency search, compensation, and advertising strategy. He spent 30 years in senior account management and business development positions with leading global agencies.

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Comments

Great advice as always Avi! Rethinking how they work, agencies can dictate the pace of change by getting out ahead of it. Great advice to take a chapter from the clients’ play book. Get back to basics.

Clients spend big money making sure their firms operate the fastest, quickest, smartest way they can. And that means they have to put pressure on their suppliers to either get in step with them or fall behind.

Improve the way your firm operates. This can pay big dividends in terms of profitability, speed, response, and client satisfaction – free up resources to try something different – be more creative.

My favorite part of the article was “Fail quick, Cheaply and Often.” I think it is good to realize that it is going to happen and also know why. Any internet marketing expert, is an expert at failing. Glad to see someone bring that to light. it really is the key to innovation.